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ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The knock on Ryan Fitzpatrick when he started at quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, circa 2010-12, was he couldn’t throw deep.

Well, he sometimes could get it there. But the universally held belief in Western New York — and Central Ontario, too — was that Fitz could not complete downfield passes with any consistency, effectiveness or zip with that popgun arm of his. For that reason, the theory extrapolated, Fitz probably was not physically capable of ever leading the Bills to the playoffs, and if he ever did get them there he’d never take them far into January, let alone ever get them to February.

Three years and six months after the Bills effectively told Fitz to get lost, he finally displayed such a dangerous downfield acumen, in leading the New York Jets to a 37-31 victory Thursday night at ironically named New Era Field. It was no new era for the Bills — as usual, they utterly fell apart on one side of the ball in a game they had to win — but sure was for Fitz.

In staking the Jets out to a 20-10 halftime lead, the 33-year-old completed five passes longer than 20 yards: 34, 24, 37, 21 and 21. It was no fluke. After the Bills retired Bruce Smith’s 78 jersey at halftime, Fitzpatrick proved even more lethal on the deep throws, with four more such completions: 58, 27, 35 and 27.

So you have to forgive Fitz if he got his back up a little afterward and threw it back — accurately, as usual on this night — in the faces of his Buffalo-area detractors.

I asked him in the cramped Jets post-game interview room if he garnered any level of satisfaction from so impressive a downfield passing performance in this stadium.

“Not really,” he said.

Then he all but corrected himself.

“I know — well, maybe my dad — but I have more confidence in myself than anybody else on this earth. I know that. I know I can make all those throws. So when you guys say that, it doesn’t really affect me all that much. But, I dunno, maybe it gives you guys something to write about for a week.”

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – No one regards Tyrod Taylor as one of the NFL’s handful of elite quarterbacks.

He wants that to change by season’s end.

“For sure,” he said in a training-camp interview. “There’s work to be done at every position on our team, and I attacked this offseason with that mindset — to learn from my mistakes last year and be even better this year.

“The leadership on offence starts with the quarterback. I welcome that position, and that role, with open arms. And I’m excited to go out there and show my peers what I can do — and ultimately help this team win football games.”

‘G-Ro’ knows what Tyrod
has to work on, but isn’t sharing

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – What exactly does Tyrod Taylor have to do in his second year of starting for the Buffalo Bills to take his game to the next level?

Bills offensive coordinator Greg Roman knows, but isn’t saying.

“I don’t like to air people’s laundry publicly,” Roman said in a training-camp interview. “I just think as a quarterback in this league there’s a process that takes place.

“Last year was really his first year of playing. But I do know that there are certain things — and he agrees — that he needs to conquer, and take steps, to become the type of player that he wants to be, and we want him to be.”

Taylor ranked among NFL leaders in deep-pass accuracy a year ago, after not appearing any more accurate on long passes than his starting-job competitors — EJ Manuel and Matt Cassel — in spring and early-camp practices.

Was Roman — whom players call “G-Ro” — surprised how good he was in games?

“Not really,” he said. “Not everybody can do it — turn the ball over like that and throw it with accuracy that deep. He’s very talented at that. Obviously we led the league with big plays, with touchdowns scored outside the red zone, and a lot of it was because of that.”

For his part, Taylor said his deep-ball accuracy probably remains his least-known attribute.

“Yeah, I would say so,” he said in a training-camp interview. “And we have the guys to go out there and do it. We have a bunch of speed on our team, a bunch of guys that are deep threats who can track the ball well too. So if I can give those guys a chance, we can be very lethal in that aspect.”

OWINGS MILLS, Md. – Rex is Rex, and the Baltimore Ravens pretty much know what they’ll see on defence from the Buffalo Bills in today’s NFL opener for both teams.

During a training-camp stop this summer, I asked Ravens head coach John Harbaugh if the fact Bills head coach Rex Ryan is doubling down on his family’s long-established brand of D would help the Ravens prepare for the Bills.

Harbaugh’s answer:

“Well with Rex, there’s no way in the world that we’re going to think he’s going to change his defence. He believes in what he’s doing, he’s very creative, he’ll come up with some ideas, certainly, that we’re going to have to be prepared for.

“It’s not as if he’s going to come out here and be predictable; he’s not. But Rex is a great coach, and they run a great system — and it’s basically a system that his dad created. Rex has just built on it and developed it over the years, obviously.

“Rex was here. We watched Rex, we’ve played against his defences. We understand the defence as well as we think we can. It’s our job to attack it, and execute against it.

“You never expect Rex Ryan to change his philosophy or his beliefs. He’s Buddy’s son and that’s what he’s going to do.”

Reports Saturday night said the agent for Buffalo Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor not only attended the team’s evening scrimmage in Pittsford, N.Y., but also met with team brass.

This, two days after a report said the two sides were working on a “bridge” contract.

As it happened, last weekend on my training-camps tour stop in Pittsford, I asked both sides whether they’d be open to such a short-term compromise. Neither expressed opposition.

Taylor’s current contract is set to pay him just $2 million in base salary this year, with potentially $1 million more in incentives, per Spotrac.com. That’s an incredible bargain for the Bills, who signed Taylor as a free agent a year ago March, after he backed up Joe Flacco in Baltimore for the first four years of his NFL career.

A week ago Saturday, on my weekend visit to St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, I asked Bills GM Doug Whaley specifically whether he’d be open to a new short-term contract for Taylor. I didn’t think it was particularly newsworthy, but in light of events of the past few days, here’s his answer, FWIW:

“There’s always that possibility. We’re looking at every option. And the thing that we’re excited about is the one thing about the negotiations is both sides want the resolution where he’s a Buffalo Bill. We’ve just got to come to a common ground where they feel like it’s great for them, and we feel like it’s great for us … These are things that I don’t think will get done overnight, but hopefully we’ll get something done.”

In a post-podium interview the same day, I asked Taylor if he had informed his agent, Adisa Bakari, whether there is a minimum number of years he’s insisting on for any new deal.

Taylor’s answer:

“I haven’t. I mean, we’ve discussed it — the contract in general.”

Beyond that, re contract talks with the Bills, Taylor told me: “Honestly I do not know. I told my agent it’s training camp. I don’t really want to hear about that right now. Handle your business.”

Matthew Fairbairn of NewYorkUpstate.com is reporting that Taylor met with his agent Saturday night following Bakari’s meeting with Bills leadership.

In his first year as an NFL starter for Buffalo in 2015, Taylor tied NFL MVP Cam Newton for the league’s seventh best passer rating (99.4), after completing 64% of his passes for 20 touchdowns against only six interceptions.

- – -

With contentious new-stadium talk swirling again around Buffalo and Bills,
a reminder of what guides and constrains that process — and why building
later rather than sooner could cost Erie County taxpayers tens of millions

JOHN KRYK

Postmedia

The Buffalo Bills need a new stadium. Except they don’t. If they do, it’s got to go downtown. Or anywhere but downtown. And have a roof. Or no roof. And bygawd still have ample tailgating outside. Or no tailgating drunkenness at all.

There’s no shortage of opinions among Bills fans in Western New York and Central Ontario on the contentious new-stadium-or-not debate. It trails this franchise like a stubborn heat-seeking missile — especially since Terry and Kim Pegula bought the NFL club from the estate of founding owner Ralph Wilson in October 2014.

Every couple of months since then, it seems, some important stakeholder says something on the record about whether the city and team require a replacement for Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Then away we go again for a few more days of discord.

Roger Goodell’s comments Monday at Jim Kelly’s charity golf tournament in Batavia, N.Y., — as innocuous as they were — were the latest.

The commissioner this time did not come out and assert the NFL team must have a new stadium to remain viable in its small market, as he did on at least two occasions two years ago when the team was for sale. Instead Goodell employed nuance, answering questions with questions, and saying a modern NFL stadium must be able to earn the support of both fans and the “business community,” and “generate the revenues necessary to be competitive in the league, ultimately.”

That’s code for Buffalo isn’t pouring enough coin into league coffers, to the angst of its billionaires’ club (i.e., owners).

Whether the answer is renovating Ralph Wilson Stadium yet again, or building a new venue, Goodell said it’s a decision that must be “made locally.”

He’s right about that.

The conflict arising this spring is that while locals continue to slow-walk the path to a decision, impatient NFL owners are now applying two-handed shoves from behind. In March a few of Goodell’s bosses — NFL owners — publicly expressed impatience and dissatisfaction with the lack of new stadium progress in Buffalo.

Because. Must. Have. More. Coin.

With a decision on the Bills’ long-term home probably still several years away, debate and controversy will swirl and gust without let-up, much like the winds on late-November afternoons at the Ralph.

So now is probably a good time to review what will necessarily drive, guide and govern the decision-making process: that is, the Bills’ restrictive 10-year lease of Ralph Wilson Stadium in suburban Orchard Park, and its accompanying non-relocation agreement (NRA).

This is not news to anyone who closely followed the four-month Bills sale process two years ago.

No matter what the commissioner or any number of NFL owners may want, the Bills cannot move into a new stadium before their current stadium lease at Ralph Wilson Stadium expires in 2023.

At least not without Erie County’s and the state’s backing, and the former apparently is not coming.

What few may realize is that should Erie County oppose, and thus delay, new-stadium construction well into next decade, that stance could wind up costing the county’s taxpayers tens if not hundreds of millions of additional dollars by the time a new venue finally is built. More on that in a moment. First the background.

The NRA states that Bills ownership cannot “enter into” any discussions to start planning a replacement stadium that would open before 2023, the year the lease expires, without the written permission of both Erie County and the State of New York.

Of course, if the county and state were on board with the Bills in such a venture, the three sides could quickly draw up a new agreement to override such restrictions in the lease and NRA.

But Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz for years has expressed adamant opposition to a replacement stadium any time soon — unless, he has said, the NFL and the Bills open up their ledgers and can prove that the club, to survive, requires the additional revenues a new stadium would generate.

Poloncarz reiterated his reasons in a March 25 interview with Buffalo’s WGRZ-TV.

“There’s no need to do it now,” Poloncarz said. “If you build a new stadium, you’re not going to make that much more money on new revenue. Mr. Pegula knows this.

“He knows if he were to invest hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money in the building of a new stadium, he would never get the rate of return back on the investment through new revenue. The NFL doesn’t care. They want him to go do it. Mr. Pegula is a smart enough businessman to know that that makes no sense.”

Poloncarz’s current (and second) term as elected leader of Erie County runs to November 2019.

His comments to WGRZ were in reaction to a report in March by Vic Carucci of the Buffalo News, who quoted New York Giants co-owner and chairman John Mara as saying “all” NFL owners want the Bills to fast-track a new stadium.

Carucci also reported that some owners in the NFL remain sore that the Bills did not commit to a new stadium a few years ago, over endorsing (and coughing up $35 million toward) $130 million of upgrades at the Ralph.

NFL owners in 2013, however, signed off on those upgrades, as well as the long-term lease and NRA. The time to voice opposition was internally then, not publicly now.

Bear in mind that before the lease’s July 30, 2023 expiry, the NRA does allow for Bills owners to unilaterally plan, design and construct a new stadium — just so long as the intention is to not begin playing there until August 2023 or later.

The Pegulas have barely spoken in public about replacing the Ralph since NFL owners approved their purchase of the Bills. At that time, Goodell reiterated the league’s view that a new stadium in Buffalo was vital to the team’s long-term viability.

Days later, at the Pegulas’ introductory news conference in Orchard Park, Terry said, “We will gradually proceed to plan and design a stadium for the Buffalo Bills. You know these things take time.”

Without the county’s support, the NRA technically prevents the Bills from so much as picking up a phone to talk to an outside party about building a new stadium that would open before 2023, even if located within Erie County.

The lease and NRA, you might recall, served as giant icebergs around which so much of the Bills sale process navigated two years ago. Just as these documents scared away prospective Bills bidders — and effectively sunk the plans of one finalist bidder (rocker Jon Bon Jovi’s Toronto group) that wished to eventually relocate the Bills from Buffalo — so they appear to scupper the wishes of anyone wanting the Bills to fast-track a new stadium, at least as long as Poloncarz is obstinate.

On this issue, perhaps the most important takeaway from these contracts is that they bind the Bills not to Erie County generally, but specifically to Ralph Wilson Stadium.

Erie County – in which Buffalo sits — owns the 43-year-old stadium renamed in 1998 after the club’s founding owner. The county leases the venue to the Erie County Stadium Corporation (ECSC), a public benefit corporation run by the State of New York. The ECSC, in turn, sub-leases the stadium to the Bills.

According to language in the NRA, without written consent of both the county and the ECSC (that is, the state) Bills ownership:

1. cannot “entertain any offer or proposal to relocate the team to a location other than” Ralph Wilson Stadium during the lease term,

2. cannot “solicit an offer or proposal from any person to enter into” such discussions,

3. cannot “enter into negotiations or agreements with third parties concerning the relocation” of the Bills to a venue other than the Ralph during the lease term, and

4. cannot “attempt to cause the playing of games at a location other than” the Ralph during the lease term.

The lease does contain an out clause we heard so much about during the sale process. In a brief window following the 2019 season — ending Feb. 28, 2020 – the club can buy its way out of the lease and NRA, three years early, for a $28.4-million fee.

It is unclear from language in the NRA, however, when — perhaps even if — the Pegulas could begin unilateral new-stadium planning and construction prior to exercising that opt-out in the 2020 off-season, in the unlikely event the couple were to choose that route.

But the opt-out is something Poloncarz should not take lightly, according to Marc Ganis, who as president of Chicago-based Sports Corp. Ltd. is a long-time expert in the field of pro sports franchise relocations and stadium deals.

“The Bills can terminate the agreement but not vacate the building after 2019,” Ganis said. “Let’s say that the Erie County executive refused to enter into new-stadium discussions — period, end of story. Well, the Bills could always terminate after the 2019 season and open up discussions with everyone, beyond Erie County. And my guess would be that would result in something that would not be advantageous for the citizens of Erie County.”

Indications are Poloncarz would be happy to sit down with both the Bills and the state to jointly discuss this matter at any time. But his opposition to a new stadium before 2023 would not budge.

Or would it?

“That’s a good negotiating position from which to start,” Ganis said. “It is a highly unlikely spot at which the negotiations would end. He shouldn’t give away the goodies before they’ve even entered into discussions, so on that I agree with him.”

If it’s not a negotiating ploy, and Poloncarz is earnest and steadfast in opposing a pre-’23 replacement stadium, Ganis said that position would be unwise — as it could cost county taxpayers dearly, presuming the county at whatever point next decade would help to pay for a replacement stadium within its borders.

Ganis cited how much more expensive it is to build stadiums today than a decade ago. And price tags will continue to sky-rocket.

The extrapolation math is as simple as it is jarring.

New England’s Gillette Stadium (which opened in 2002) and Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field (which opened in 2003) each cost about $300 million, Ganis said. In comparison, the Minnesota Vikings’ new stadium, set to open this year, has cost $1.1 billion; Atlanta’s new downtown roofed stadium, to open next year, will cost $1.4 billion; and Los Angeles’ albeit gawdy new stadium, targeted for a 2019 opening, will top out at $2.3 billion, Ganis said.

“The Erie County executive is looking at it, unfortunately, as government people and politicians sometimes do,” Ganis said. “He’s looking at it at a narrow perspective, rather than at a broader perspective. And the broader perspective is you’ve got to take into account the continuing increases in the capital costs of these projects, as well.

“If you delay a decade, what might cost $1.1 billion today might be $2.2 billion in 10 years. And the public sector is going to be expected to pay a meaningful part of that, because the Buffalo market is among the smallest in the NFL.”

Let’s say Erie County — apart from whatever the state, the Pegulas and the NFL kick in — will cover 20% of the cost of a new stadium, whenever it might be built. That’d be $200 million on a $1-billion stadium, $300 million on a $1.5-billion stadium and $400 million on a $2-billion stadium.

In contrast, that 20% share would have been just $60 million had a $300-million replacement stadium been built 10 or 15 years ago. Ten years from now, how much will the price tag be?

American taxpayers have paid for 46% of NFL stadium construction or upgrade costs over the past two decades — some $7 billion total — according to Dieter Kurtenbach of Fox Sports.

Why the steep price increases this century?

“It’s the nature of the beast,” Ganis said. “It’s in order to be competitive. They’re thinking 21 years from now, 31 years from now, so they’ve had to include a lot more (in the design and construction): complicated roofs, more concourse space, availability for other events to help cover the costs. It’s all meaningful.”

Critics of NFL teams’ penchant for building replacement stadiums every three or four decades beg to differ. They point to college football stadiums, some of the most famous of which were built eight or nine decades ago. In six years, for instance, Ohio State’s iconic “Horseshoe” — Ohio Stadium — turns 100.

No matter, a new Bills stadium probably will be built in the Buffalo area by 2030. For the next few years the NFL can apply all the public pressure it wants to have that happen much sooner. But considering the lease/NRA prohibitions, considering it takes four years at least to properly plan, design and build a new stadium, and as long as Poloncarz is not on board, you couldn’t blame the Pegulas if they continue to say nothing of substance in public about what kind of new stadium they envision, where they’d like it located, and when they’d like to begin building it.

Keep expecting to hear non-committal generalities, such as what team president Russ Brandon said in March, when asked about new-stadium prospects during a group interview with Bills beat writers at the NFL’s annual meeting in Boca Raton, Fla.:

“It’s a hot topic that I’m asked about often. And I can tell you directly that we’ve had zero discussions relative to anything related to a new stadium with the county, the state, at this point.

“With the lease being up when it is, there’s going to be very thoughtful conversation in both the private and public sector down the road, if that’s the route we go. But we have to make a macro-level decision that benefits the entire community. And it has to be (in) partnership with state and county officials. But that, I can tell you unequivocally, is not the focus now.”